Tommy Wirkola’s “Violent Night”

Violent Night

If a "b-movie Die Hard with magic and Santa Claus" sounds like a good idea, you deserve this movie

The worst movie to sit through is one without risk of some kind. In this movie, the lead is Santa Clause (yes, the actual Santa Claus) who is magic and a kid who you know will never be harmed. On top of that, it feels like a Hallmark movie outside the fights; the lighting, dialogue, story, music. There’s violence and swearing but it’s violence and swearing that’s been processed.

Prior to seeing this, I avoided the trailers. I was sold on the concept of David Harbour in a Santa outfit but I wasn’t expecting him to be the “real Santa” with magical powers. I thought he would have been a mortal guy with mortal problems; a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time like John Maclane. We don’t even get to know him aside from a couple of Bad Santa knock off scenes that don’t really work from people who don’t understand Zwigoff’s movie.

My colleague Scrumpy on the Two Oceans Podcast mentioned the problem with American films where you know the kids will never be harmed and the same problem rears its head here. Along with Harbour, there’s Leah Brady who does a good job with what she’s given, the daughter of Jason and and Linda Lightstone played by Alex Hassell and Alexis Louder. This trio are actually pretty charming and Trudy(Brady) has one of the few action scenes that work where in a 5-minute Home Alone retread with safety off, we get a little respite from the dull drone of the rest of the film but we know she’s never in any real danger.

What’s really hard to understand is who this film is for because it doesn’t really lean into anything fully. It’s like they held back at points because kids might be watching, but this is in no way a film for kids. Likewise, it’s not really a film for adults either. Imagine a “Terrifier” film where the director kept thinking about kids viewing and you get an idea of how restrained this is without even considering the fact there’s Santa Clause with his magic bag, reindeer and deus ex machina “Christmas magic”.

Then there’s the craftsmanship of the movie. There are several points in this where it’s like the foley artist(sound effects) fell asleep. For example, at one point where someone breaks through a door, it’s entirely silent. Punches lack any crack. The lighting of the movie is flat and dull, the cinematography bland; again, it’s like a Hallmark production. Everything else is lifted from other movies and it doesn’t bear the comparison from Die Hard to Bad Santa.

And let’s get to the villains. Our protagonists are an extremely rich oil family (who have their own kill team btw and $300 million in the safe) celebrating Christmas eve with an army of servants holding trays of food in corridors. John Leguizamo’s is the Hans Gruber figure here with those aforementioned servants being his army. In many ways, you’ll be rooting for these people in the service industry rising up against the rich. Leguizamo isn’t really given much here and most of his lines are pretty painful to watch because, obviously, he hates Christmas and has the codename “Scrooge”.

Finally, it has a bizarre moral compass. I mentioned the working class vs the bourgeoisie, but Santa learns if he could only employ his violent Viking history from 1100 years ago(well before the Vikings) and use it for good, he would be a better person while kids are being put on the naughty list for saying “butt hole”.

In terms of Tommy Wirkola, the Norwegian directors’ only major film prior to this is Dead Snow(2009) where he managed to mess up zombie nazis in the snow (now that’s a low bar) but that was miles more watchable than what we get here. There are a couple of reasons a bad movies will primarily upset me. The first is that I can see a good movie in there and director failed to deliver. The second, and this includes “Violent Night”, is where the production is so half-baked, so ill-conceived that I’m actually angry that the resources given to the director weren’t given to someone more deserving.

You can honestly hear the pitch meeting for this one: “It’s Die Hard with elements of Home Alone led by David Harbour as a Bad Santa but it’s the REAL Santa Clause and he’s magic.” Some executive heard Die Hard, Home Alone and Bad Santa and thought it was a good idea. In reality, you’re much better off watching all those films for the 35th time rather than suffer through this once.